Nathan (Taylor Lautner) is a relatively regular kid, about to finish high school, a bit of a thrill-seeker and seeing a therapist due to ill-defined anger management issues from his early teens. He is paired up with his friend and neighbour Karen (Lily Collins) for a school project, through which they find themselves scanning through a website detailing children who have disappeared. Nathan notices an uncanny resemblance between himself and one of those children, which serves as a catalyst for the murder of the people he believed to be his parents, sending him on the run with the CIA and a Serbian secret agent on his tail, while he tries to figure out who he really is and what has become of his real parents.
*****
To get the obvious out of the way first thing, Taylor Lautner is no great shakes as an actor. His relative youth was a serviceable excuse for Sharkboy & Lava Girl, but by the time we now get four films into the Twilight saga, it is starting to show glaringly. He can scowl, smile and (we now discover) kick and punch with the best of them, but his line delivery and conveying of emotional weight remain lacking.
Having said that, his limitations do not really present much of a problem in relation to the overall impact of this film, the latest in a long line of illustrations that director John Singleton really has gone a long, long way downhill since Boyz N The Hood, his searing 1991 debut. Singleton at least has the good sense to pack the film out with impressive actors (Alfred Molina, Sigourney Weaver, Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello, Michael Nyqvist), who take care of the heavy-lifting, while Lautner frowns, runs, punches and looks good on a motorcycle. The script is pure bunkum (Nathan’s real father stole a list of secret agents from the aforementioned Serbian who wants it back), but remains believably conveyed without too much ham-fisted exposition and it cannot be questioned that Lautner is more than a match for the physical requirements of the film, holding his own in fight scenes with bigger, older and more accomplished men on the basis of an apparently impressive background in martial arts. Although Lautner does not have much range, the role does not require too much of him and he acquits himself well with limited material.
Aside from Lautner, everyone does their part. Weaver, Molina et al could do this stuff in their sleep, but to their credit they do not phone their performances in and give good value for the most part. As by the numbers as the film is, there is no sense of anyone having ideas above their station in terms of their aspirations for the film and no-one does the film the disservice of sleep-walking through their scenes. All concerned seem to appreciate that the film is what it is, a serviceable action thriller, built on and playing to the appeal of Lautner and not trying to be anything more than that. The running time is fine, knocking around the 100min mark and although the plot takes a little longer to kick into gear than it should, once Nathan and Karen are on the run the pacing is excellent, alternating between action sequences and moments of rest and plot development, which whilst far from emotionally affecting, do at least keep you interested to the end.
There are a number of good set pieces, some involving Lautner, others bringing in Bello and Isaacs for some welcome ass-kicking and they help to keep our attention when the admittedly unsurprising narrative begins to become formulaic. This is nothing that will convert those uninterested in Lautner’s tight abs, nor will it deter those who adore him and it seems likely that with the right choices Lautner can carve out a decent career for himself. You can catch it here from 13th February.
[Rating:2.5/5]
Extras: Lautner comes across as surprisingly and pleasantly enthusiastic, realistic, grounded and focussed in the raft of extras which inevitably focus on him. He waxes eloquent about working with the rest of the impressive cast and seems to understand how fortunate he is to find himself where he is, career-wise. Everyone has genuinely nice things to say about his physical ability and commitment to the performance, whether in the brief making of doc, or the featurette that looks at fighting training. We also get a slightly longer featurette that takes us through the shooting schedule and Lautner’s recollections of and reflections on each phase. It is quite interesting to see the shooting sequence and how much time is given to each element of the film and to see Lautner’s self-effacing nature come through. Finally, there is a run of the mill gag reel.
[Rating:2.5/5]
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5k7ECYZ-ds’]
